Monday, November 16, 2009

Because Carl's post is pretty much terrible, Rob emerges from his dark grave etc etc.

So, apparently Randall Munroe (whose corpse has been mummified and preserved, that he may be with us eternally) has heard of the Droid! This is exciting news, you guys. He has heard about it and now he is going to wax philosophical in the only way he way only he knows how to: by talking about meaninglessness, which is shorthand for existentialism! That's pretty deep.

Mostly though I feel validated. You see, before today, I wasn't sure if Randall Munroe (whose corpse has been mummified and preserved, that he may be with us eternally) approved of my purchase of the Droid. Now that I know it has his stamp of approval, and--oh, fuck it.

I think there's a hint of self-depreciation in panel 2. Randall Munroe (whose corpse has been mummified and preserved, that he may be with us eternally) apparently already had a G1 (which he just cold doesn't mention in the comic). He apparently bought or covets the Droid. And now he is aware of what he is become--the type of person who sedately consumes, as Randall Munroe (whose corpse has been mummified and preserved, that he may be with us eternally) once put it.

Then panel three is a snarky comment at how the iPhone is proprietary software. Ha ha ha, free software is great, will someone please love me? And that kind of ruins it. I mean, the setup for a really good joke is there. It could be really excellent, the kind of stuff that made up the golden days of XKCD. If only he'd just drop those last two lines of dialogue. It's not necessary. It's not clever.

Without those two lines, Randall Munroe (whose corpse has been mummified and preserved, that he may be with us eternally) could have ended on a succinct note, for once, but I'm mostly annoyed that he took what could have been a funny line--"Yeah, on both"--and followed it up with some snarky "haha the iPhone sucks" jab.

Now, I'm a man who likes his snark. I am guilty of it, oh, basically all the time, ever. Just ask anyone! (Or don't, usually they just say "We don't want any" and slam the door in my face, and it's cold outside and just once I want them to let me inside for a minute so I can be warm.) But this is just a poor example. There's no depth to it, no absurdity, no irony. It is utterly bereft of the je ne sais quois, as the Russians say, which makes snark (which is a Russian word, look it up) so beautiful. It feels, not even contrived, but obligatory. Like the sort of thing a free culture nerd would say if this had come up in conversation. And then the people who happen to like their women like they like their software (proprietary) roll their eyes and say "fucking freetards" and then everyone gets on with their lives.

Anonymous, that was the joke. The joke is that they're not actually Russian words. It is funny because the writer is satirizing false intellectuals who only say things to sound smart, even if they are factually incorrect.

Please relegate yourself to reading CAD if you're so stupid you need every joke explained to you.

I find it hilarious how people are all OMG THIS IS TOTALLY GERMAN/YIDDISH YOU IDIOT but apparently no one cares Rob used an entire French phrase and called it Russian? Be consistent with your numbnut complaints, dammit!

Also, the mummified joke was just kinda lost to me and just felt tedious and meaningless.

haha, oh man I got burned. so I didn't get the joke, I was skimreading and then the first few comments were very convincingly insincere. nevermind. props for making a joke that passed me by. just sayin'

LOL! So xkcd now is about you? Did I get this post right? Now that's something amusing.

The third panel of the comic is not about proprietary software AT ALL. It's about iPhone store pittiful policy of rejecting so many interesting applications in favor of their own sense of "politically correct" or whatever misguides them in their arbitrariness.

Really, for a blog that *hates* xkcd, I would expect you guys to, at least, understand the comics.

I don't "hate" xkcdsucks. Most of the time, I don't even take it seriously. But this was just pitiful.

You don't see shit like that in many online stores. Apple's is one of a kind. Sure, they also happen to work with proprietary software, but it's not proprietary software that causes them to promote idiotic policies. That's not what's being criticized here.

You could learn something with xkcd, for a change. Have you tried comic #552?

It is exactly proprietary software that causes them to promote idiotic policies, actually. If the iPhone were free software, it would not be possible for them to restrict what software you're able to use on the iPhone. But it's proprietary! So you can't.

You have clearly never hung out with free culture people. Like, it's cool if you haven't. But basically all of my friends are free culture people. Some of them are more gung-ho than others--ranging from the gentleman who calls proprietary software tyranny to the guy who thinks that free software is just a better model for the consumer. (Randall, for the record, is a free culture person; there is a reason we move in the same circles.)

What I am saying is my social circle is both tech-centric and filled with varying levels of free culture people. A huge number of them have either an iPhone or something running Android. Since we are all interested in technology and free culture, I've had innumerable conversations about the iPhone and free/proprietary software, and the relative merits thereof.

Every time Apple does something that is notably unfree--rejecting software, mostly--it's the free culture people who complain. And they complain about how the iPhone is nonfree (i.e., proprietary) software.

Apple in particular is an example of an entire company which is highly proprietary. Most of its defining characteristics, whether it's in Mac OS or the iPhone or the iPod, are "this software is proprietary."

The big difference between proprietary software and free software, as is relevant to this conversation, is this: proprietary software restricts you from doing certain things, or using certain applications; free software has no such restrictions.

The Apple store, because it is proprietary, restricts applications in an arbitrary fashion. As the joke is about the Apple store's arbitrary restrictions, it is a joke he proprietary nature of the store. In a free store (which Android Market is not perfectly, though Android itself being free, it is possible to avoid the use of Market altogether), this does not happen; it is only possible in a proprietary store.

This is the crux of the free culture argument against the iPhone: software wants to be free; the iPhone's software is not free.

Dude, I'm a freaking computer scientist. I'm taking a master's degree in a public university and I can tell you there's lots of FOSS action going on around here. I do know what free and open source software culture is. I'm writing this post from a Linux-box, as a matter of fact.

I also happen to be very interested in technology and I follow many blogs on the subject. So I know your opinion is biased. In fact, I see a whole different scenario here: most complains I read about Apple store's policy come from people and bloggers who don't give a damn about free software philosophy. Many of them actually own Apple products, and one of them is particularly damn proud of it (yet I see him as the one who complains the most about Apple Store).

Yes, there's rage among open source fanboys against Apple. Yes, Apple can't apply their arbitrary policy if they work with open source software. But, no, it is not the fact that they work with proprietary software that defines their policy. As I said before, you don't see all virtual stores fumbling with their policies like Apple does.

No matter how much working with proprietary software is necessary for Apple to apply their "special" policies, the fact is that "required" is not the same as "sufficient". Apple plays the way they play because of the people in charge of the company, not their business model.

So, I really do not see any free software versus proprietary software bitching in this comic. It's just you guys and a very biased analysis.

Just compare: implying this comic is about FOSS versus non-FOSS just because it depicts a representative of both models is like saying a joke depicting Barack Obama and George Bush necessarily implies a Democratic vs. Republican critic, when we know it's all about Bush's clumsiness and how the whole world feels happier now he's been replaced by a normal, intelligent person.

It's not about me requiring more education, but about you needing some perception. =p

Again: the reason you don't see it is because you are evidently a complete fuckwit who has no understanding of free culture. (But just, you know, protip: being a computer scientist who knows what FOSS is has nothing to do with being involved in free culture. Even if you run Linux. I am running Linux and it has nothing to do with my desire to run free software. I note with disdain that you are not asserting any free culture credentials.)

"So I know your opinion is biased." This confuses me. I really have no vested interest in this joke being about free software as opposed to about the Apple store's proprietary properties specifically. (I am also confused because you seem to think that tech blogs are somehow capable of granting you knowledge of some biases I allegedly have, but that is neither here nor there.)

Indeed, if anything you seem to have a particular bias against Apple. I think your problem is that I am not coming down hard enough on them? Or perhaps that you simply don't understand nuance? In any case, you keep using language like "idiotic policies", "misguides them in their arbitrariness;" I'm merely observing that the joke is a hackneyed thing about proprietary software that you would expect any free culturite to throw out. It's boring. It's expected. It is also a joke that I have heard, in its various forms, from free culturites complaining about Apple being proprietary, a hundred times.

In the meanwhile, I will continue basing my information on how the free culture people actually frame arguments, and you can continue basing it on the fact that you use Linux. (I had to scroll up and make sure that you actually did something so stupid as to claim using Linux somehow gives you free culture cred. I didn't think anyone was actually that dumb.)

Oh, and w/r/t Obama vs. Bush, I have a massive quantity of Republicans I'd like you to meet who would disagree very much with your assessment.

I never said using Linux gives me free culture credit. The only claim I gave of my knowledge of wtf free culture is was "there's lots of FOSS action going on around here". I'm not directly involved with that, but I'm in touch with several people who are. Free software and free software culture is far from being a strange subject to me.

I also never said blogs guarantee anything other than helping me keep in touch with what's going on. I follow lots of free software and proprietary software advocates and I know what kind of debates and jokes are going on.

You see, you always get the wrong conclusions. Instead of seeing what's really happening, you selectively focus on certain facts and ignore others attempting to support your statements.

The fact that you claim you have "a massive quantity of Republicans [you]'d like [me] to meet who would disagree very much with [my] assessmen" is a great example of what's going on here. Just like these folks are biased to see anything depicting Obama and Bush as Republican vs. Democratic you're biased toward seeing anything depicting a FOSS application and a non-FOSS application as proprietary philosophy vs. free philosophy.

I have no particular bias against Apple. I have fact-supported criticism against Apple store policies. And that's exactly what this comic strip is about. Yeah, I call it "idiotic" and "arbitrary". Is that wrong? I could use words as "unpredictable", "incoherent", "self-contradictory" and "autoritative", but "idiotic" and "arbitrary" sums up my opinion about their policies nicely.

I think it's very funny of yours telling me about nuances, since that's what you've been lacking from start.

But, well, what should I expect from a guy who sees a comic about Droid vs. iPhone and immedaitly thinks it must be about xckdsucks? No one else is involved in that and no one else in the world buys Droid. It must be about Carl!

Btw, the next time you want to support some opinion, make sure you don't use ad-hominen argumentation. There's no reason to call anyone here dumb, fuckwit or any shit like that. I may be posting as anonymous, but I've been respectful all the freaking time, even though I think you are as wrong as a person could be.

Oh, something else: the reason why I said anything about blogs, after all, was because of this argument of yours:

Every time Apple does something that is notably unfree--rejecting software, mostly--it's the free culture people who complain. And they complain about how the iPhone is nonfree (i.e., proprietary) software.

And that's wrong. If you think that way, then you must be following exclusively the free software people. There are complains from both sides, including from the people who support Apple products.

"I never said using Linux gives me free culture credit. The only claim I gave of my knowledge of wtf free culture is was "there's lots of FOSS action going on around here"."

Ah, so you just mentioned it for no reason? "Yeah, I'm using Linux. Just a random fact, doesn't mean anything, I could have literally said anything here." Right.

"I'm not directly involved with that"

Bingo! Thanks for playing.

"I also never said blogs guarantee anything other than helping me keep in touch with what's going on. I follow lots of free software and proprietary software advocates and I know what kind of debates and jokes are going on."

Funny how you'd missed the fact that free software people are always complaining about the apple store because it is non-free (i.e. proprietary), then. (Oh, and in case you for some reason doubt that Friend Randy is a freetard: do check out http://xkcd.com/488/ and recall that he licenses his comic CC, and also see here: http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/03/23/cory-doctorow/ where he recommends Lessig)

"You see, you always get the wrong conclusions. Instead of seeing what's really happening, you selectively focus on certain facts and ignore others attempting to support your statements."

I'm not ignoring any facts here, sweetheart. Randy, being a free culture advocate, is complaining about a thing which is notably not free. He is doing it in a fashion identical to that of other free culture people complaining about the fact that it is not free.

I'm still not clear why you saw fit to complain about this particular assertion. It doesn't change the substance of the post or the comic at all. I could easily just replace "complaining about how the iPhone is proprietary" with "complaining about the App Store" and leave the rest of the post untouched (probably incl. the second use of the word 'proprietary,' which is not referring to the comic). It still lacks depth, absurdity, irony, etc.

"Just like these folks are biased to see anything depicting Obama and Bush as Republican vs. Democratic"

Haha. Yeah, the entire Republican base is biased. That's not about Republicans at all.

You keep saying that but you have yet to give me any reason that I might have this bias. Do you think I'm anti-free culture and I want to take any chance to attack it?

"I have no particular bias against Apple. I have fact-supported criticism against Apple store policies. And that's exactly what this comic strip is about. Yeah, I call it "idiotic" and "arbitrary". Is that wrong? I could use words as "unpredictable", "incoherent", "self-contradictory" and "autoritative", but "idiotic" and "arbitrary" sums up my opinion about their policies nicely."

See, all of those words demonstrate a bias against Apple which is best summed up as this: "Apple isn't free and I want them to be!" None of them would help you fight charges of bias; and you're looking for "authoritarian" (a very free culture word, by the way), not "authoritative."

"I think it's very funny of yours telling me about nuances, since that's what you've been lacking from start."

Yes; accusing someone, based on a single use of the word proprietary, stripped of the context of the entire post, is a highly nuanced thing to do. Meanwhile it's the single dumbest conclusion in the world to say that a free culture advocate, making a free culture argument, is talking about free culture.

"But, well, what should I expect from a guy who sees a comic about Droid vs. iPhone and immedaitly thinks it must be about xckdsucks? No one else is involved in that and no one else in the world buys Droid. It must be about Carl!"

...what the fuck are you talking about? You're dumber than I thought. And speaking of:

"Btw, the next time you want to support some opinion, make sure you don't use ad-hominen argumentation. There's no reason to call anyone here dumb, fuckwit or any shit like that. I may be posting as anonymous, but I've been respectful all the freaking time, even though I think you are as wrong as a person could be."

I will call the fuckwits fuckwits if I want to, and you, sir, are a fuckwit. Protip: insulting someone is only an ad hominem argument if it is intended to distract from the argument. It isn't! I just think you're dumb.

"And that's wrong. If you think that way, then you must be following exclusively the free software people. There are complains from both sides, including from the people who support Apple products."

Or I'm capable of recognizing when non-free culture people make free culture arguments.

"LOL! So xkcd now is about you? Did I get this post right? Now that's something amusing."

I had ignored this the first time you said it because I had no idea what the fuck you were going on about, but now that you have repeated it--"what should I expect from a guy who sees a comic about Droid vs. iPhone and immedaitly thinks it must be about xckdsucks"--I thought I'd revisit it.

Where the fuck are you getting that anyone thinks this comic is about xkcd sucks?

I could easily just replace "complaining about how the iPhone is proprietary" with "complaining about the App Store"

Fuck yes! You are now this close to understanding.

The next thing you should do is saying "yes, Mr. Anonymous, you are right. The fact that Randall is into free software doesn't mean he can't make fun of Apple without evoking the free software vs. proprietary software war."

Then just take back all your bitching about panel 3, because you just fucking didn't get it.

Haha. Yeah, the entire Republican base is biased. That's not about Republicans at all.

It probably is, dumb-ass. But even if that's true 95% of the time, sometimes that conclusion is plain wrong. Just like you're wrong about panel 3.

Do you know what inductive reasoning is? That's what you're doing here.

Also, in some contexts, that's called prejudice.

Now to the hell with this shit. I've waste much time already discussing with someone who can't fucking listen.

"The next thing you should do is saying "yes, Mr. Anonymous, you are right. The fact that Randall is into free software doesn't mean he can't make fun of Apple without evoking the free software vs. proprietary software war.""

Except the reason freetards complain about the app store is that it is proprietary software. The app store is a subset of Apple's policies of proprietary software.

"Then just take back all your bitching about panel 3, because you just fucking didn't get it."

Oh, honey. I just demonstrated why, even if for some reason Randall complaining about the app store was not, for some reason, about free software (which it eminently is), that it still in no way affects my understanding of the joke. In either case "there's no depth to it, no absurdity, no irony." It still "feels, not even contrived, but obligatory. Like the sort of thing a free culture nerd would say if this had come up in conversation."

Whether or not a freetard complaining about the app store is complaining about proprietary software in no way affects the fact that I have patently understood the "joke," such as it is.

"It probably is, dumb-ass. But even if that's true 95% of the time, sometimes that conclusion is plain wrong. Just like you're wrong about panel 3."

Nice. I like how you are, in the same breath, calling an entire political party biased and insisting that it's not about them. "Attacking Bush is obviously not about the Republican party, and if you don't think that's the case then you're obviously a Republican!"

Actually, it's pretty obviously deductive. I'm going from a general principle: "if free culture advocates complain about Apple's restrictive policies, then they are complaining about proprietary software;" then it takes on a relevant fact: "Randall is a free culture advocate complaining about Apple's restrictive policies;" then it draws its conclusion: "Randall is complaining about proprietary software." That's deductive reasoning!

The general principle can be similarly derived deductively:

1. If a free culture advocate is complaining about software being restrictive, they are doing so because that software is proprietary.2. Apple's restrictive policies produce software which is restrictive.3. Therefore, if a free culture advocate is complaining about Apple's restrictive policies, they are doing so because Apple's software is proprietary.

Now, if I may, I'd like to revisit your bizarre claim that I think this comic is about xkcd sucks. It demonstrates a profound lack of reading comprehension, of the variety that only a profound imbecile is capable of.

"Mostly though I feel validated. You see, before today, I wasn't sure if Randall Munroe (whose corpse has been mummified and preserved, that he may be with us eternally) approved of my purchase of the Droid. Now that I know it has his stamp of approval, and--oh, fuck it."

This is what I said which apparently gives you the impression that I am "a guy who sees a comic about Droid vs. iPhone and immedaitly [sic] thinks it must be about xckdsucks."

Apparently you took this paragraph at face value. You took a paragraph in a post which said that "je ne sais quoi," "snark," "chutzpah," and "zeitgeist" were Russian seriously. You took a paragraph in a post which repeatedly contained the line "whose corpse has been mummified and preserved, that he may be with us eternally" seriously. But more obviously you took a paragraph that was so obviously a joke seriously. A joke so obvious that I didn't even bother finishing it. A joke in a post full of jokes--and somehow you interpreted it as me literally thinking that Randall posted this to let me know that he was cool with the fact that I'd bought a Droid.

But it gets better! Even if I wasn't obviously joking in that paragraph, and I really did feel validated in buying a Droid because of this comic, it still doesn't justify you thinking that I think he posted it specifically for my benefit. Because it's totally logical to draw from "I'm glad that the Droid has Randall's stamp of approval, I feel validated!" "Randall has specifically said that it's cool for me to buy a Droid."

Actually, it's pretty obviously deductive. I'm going from a general principle: "if free culture advocates complain about Apple's restrictive policies, then they are complaining about proprietary software;" then it takes on a relevant fact: "Randall is a free culture advocate complaining about Apple's restrictive policies;" then it draws its conclusion: "Randall is complaining about proprietary software." That's deductive reasoning!

[...]

1. If a free culture advocate is complaining about software being restrictive, they are doing so because that software is proprietary.2. Apple's restrictive policies produce software which is restrictive.3. Therefore, if a free culture advocate is complaining about Apple's restrictive policies, they are doing so because Apple's software is proprietary.

Jajajajajajajajajaja

You're funny. And ignorant. But still funny.

Deductive logic is based solely on premises and logical propositions sustained by those premises. When you have a set of premises, a series of logical propositions and a conclusion, that's what we call an argument. Your items 2 and 3 are logical propositions based on 1, but 1 is not a premise. It is, atcually, a hypothesis.

You have formed that hypothesis by inductive reasoning. It's not just because you put that hypothesis in the middle of a proposition that it becomes fact, neither a good example of deductive thinking.

The problem with your hypothesis is that it overfits. You could be right in some situations, but this time you're just plain wrong.

Stop bitching and go get yourself some study.

Listen! Learn! Sometimes you are wrong. Just admit it, fuck. No one is right all the time.

That's not what deductive means, actually. Nor premise nor hypothesis. Deductive reasoning merely works from general principles to more specific facts. That is to say, the conclusion is just as certain as the premises.

It is, however, impossible to actually do anything without some inductive reasoning. Perhaps you have read David Hume? He talked about it at some length. You see, we learn about causality not through deduction, which is impossible outside of a purely logical environment, but through induction. You can't prove that, for instance, gravity works. You can't prove that the sun rises every day. You induce it from prior knowledge.

So, yes, my premises (and they are, in fact, premises), as all premises, are inductive in nature. So are yours! All arguments are inductive. Inductive is not the same as invalid, nor is it the same as "prejudice." Though yours is the same as operating on a bias against Apple.

This is how I learn what I learn about free culture advocates. Free culture advocates complain that Apple's proprietary software is tyranny. They complain about the iPhone because it is not free software. If they have iPhones (usually because they purchased a smartphone before the release of the G1) it is jailbroken, so that they can bypass the proprietary app store. I have induced this because I follow the free culture discussion lists, I am heavily involved in local free culture (another reason I know that Randall is also a free culture advocate), I read blogs which are both free culture and not.

In literally every conversation I have had with free culture advocates about Apple--and it has ranged from Mac OS to the iPhone to the iPod, and this experience has been extensive because it is highly relevant to both my interests and those of my friends--especially comparing Apple's offerings to free culture's offerings. You see, when something is as highly proprietary as Apple, it has interesting implications for free culture's philosophy. This includes the proprietary app store.

What's interesting to us is not the over-policing per se. This is understood to flow from the fact that the app store is proprietary and Apple is a profit-seeking corporation with an interest in maintaining their proprietary nature. No, what's interesting is the fact that the App Store, like everything else Apple does, is proprietary--and possibly showcases the dark side of proprietary software.

Calling proprietary software tyranny is probably an ideal analogy here, if only because of this: a benevolent tyrant is ultimately beneficial to his people. Using and troubleshooting an Apple machine is easy precisely because it is proprietary: they are all more or less identical. The environment for all of them is the same. But the argument against tyranny is not that it is inherently wrong, but that there is a great potential for abuse.

In the case of the App Store, this is exactly the argument that is being made: that the tyranny of proprietary software is going from protective to abusive.

Find me a free culture advocate who thinks that asking for a more open app store is in no way asking for more free/less proprietary software, and maybe I'll consider that I have misinterpreted Randall Munroe's obvious attack on the App Store's proprietary nature. But he has framed it in the exact same way that every free culture advocate I do would frame it when they are asking for more free software.

"Listen! Learn! Sometimes you are wrong. Just admit it, fuck. No one is right all the time."

It's a shame you are nowhere approaching being right. Still waiting for your response to the rest of what I've said, by the way--I note you're avoiding it like the coward you are. (Hint: being the first person to ignore massive amounts of your opponent's argument just to harp on a single point does not make you right.) As someone once said: "Listen! Learn! Sometimes you are wrong. Just admit it, fuck. No one is right all the time."

It's not about being a coward. If I'm not responding that's either because I don't feel like discussing anymore or because I've been convinced by your argument. Telling you which one is my reason is up to me. Have fun guessing.

Look, giving up a meaningless internet discussion is by no means being a coward. I'm not having fun or learning anything here and I don't need your approval. You won't listen to me neither. So this is is just a big waste of time.

Also, I never said you should admit anything *to me*. So even if you have/had proven some point, I won't/wouldn't give you anything to brag about or to turn into argumenta ad hominem against me. If you had been a more pleasant person to discuss with, mabye I'd feel different about this.

I like that! "If you had been a more pleasant person to discuss with, mabye I'd feel different about this."

Maybe if you weren't so stupid I would be more pleasant! But a dude who starts with an assertion that a super obvious joke is meant as a deadly serious declaration that Randall Munroe wrote this comic specifically to approve of the Droid he doesn't know I purchased, well, I have a tendency not to respect.

"It is, however, impossible to actually do anything without some inductive reasoning. Perhaps you have read David Hume? He talked about it at some length. You see, we learn about causality not through deduction, which is impossible outside of a purely logical environment, but through induction. You can't prove that, for instance, gravity works. You can't prove that the sun rises every day. You induce it from prior knowledge."

If I understand you correctly, that's not entirely correct. There are some basic (very basic) concepts that don't require induction. They are not observations about the world, but things that simply must be true in all possible worlds (okay, there's some debate about whether all a priori knowledge is necessarily true and vice-versa, but I'm not gonna get into that because it's been years since I studied this crap. The point is, there are some things that follow from the very definition of the words, which need not be observed to be known to be true). For example, "That which is, is" or "No virgin has had sex."

Of course, there might be a world in which the word "virgin" is defined as "a sex machine", but it's not the word itself which is important - it's the referrent of the word and oh fuck this shit.

Anyway, you can draw some conclusions based on this stuff, such as "Randy is a virgin." -> "Randy has not had sex and, as a result, obsesses over it constantly in his illustrated online thought journal while constantly white-knighting and portraying women as superior to men to show female readers how sensitive and understanding he is." Okay, some of that may have been induction.

Of course, I may be missing your point completely, as I skipped a bunch of posts scanning for more comedy gems from whatshisname Learns before your sentence caught my eye. If your point is that you can't do anything useful with a priori knowledge and deduction, I agree completely.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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